Vanderbilt, William H. (William Henry), 1821-1885

Passing everything on the road

A street on a winter’s day is crowded with horse-drawn sleighs, some of which are attempting to get ahead of the others. On the left, a sleigh labeled “J. Gould” carrying Gould, Whitelaw Reid, and Roscoe Conkling has caused another sleigh labeled “Villard” and “Northern Pacific R. R.” to overturn, spilling Henry Villard, and nearly hitting George H. “Pendleton” holding on to the arm of a young girl labeled “Civil Service Reform.” Behind them is a troika labeled “Standard Oil Co.” that is driven by Sereno “Payne.” Racing ahead at the center is a sleigh labeled “The P– be d–” and “Vanderbilt” driven by William H. Vanderbilt. On the right is a large “Labor Sleigh” loaded with blue-collar workers and drawn by a single, scrawny horse struggling to keep pace. To the far right are two sleighs. One labeled “Roach Contract Cutter” is driven by John Roach and the other labeled “Field” is driven by Cyrus Field. Bringing up the rear is a sleigh labeled “Huntington” driven by Collis P. Huntington and flying a banner that states, “It costs money to fix things.” A man with a bag labeled “Laborer Iron” has fallen in the street and is about to be run over by Roach and the Labor Sleigh.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-02-06

The slave-market of to-day

Trade union laborers, some in chains labeled “High Tariff” and “Tariff,” and one standing on a block labeled “Trade Unions,” are being auctioned by a man labeled “Protectionist Statesman” to capitalists and manufacturers, including Cyrus W. Field and William H. Vanderbilt. In the background is a row of factories. A sign states “Quotations. Average wage for skilled workman $7 a Week or $359 a Year.” Caption: “Going – going – lower – lower!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-01-02

Puck’s review of the past year

Puck stands with lithographic pen and a long banner with scenes from cartoons that appeared in Puck Magazine during 1884, including the British Lion and “El Mahdi” in Egypt and Sudan, James G. Blaine’s presidential hopes, the rise of Chester A. Arthur, a downtrodden Tammany tiger, John Kelly and Benjamin Butler as entertainers, the French and the Chinese in “Tonquin,” the figure for the Independent Vote and Grover Cleveland joining forces, and millionaires Jay Gould and William H. Vanderbilt.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-12-31

The olympus of corruption – “Apollo strikes the lyre and charms the gods”

James Gillespie Blaine is pictured as Apollo playing a lyre labeled “N. Y. Tribune” fashioned from the body of Whitelaw Reid, before a gathering of the gods on Olympus. Among those present are Cyrus W. Field as Mercury, George M. Robeson as Neptune, Charles A. Dana as Minerva, Jay Gould as Zeus, Thomas Collier Platt, Robert Green Ingersoll, and Rutherford B. Hayes as angels, Chauncey Depew, W. H. Vanderbilt as Pluto, Russell Sage, William W. Phelps, John Roach as Vulcan, Stephen B. Elkins as Dionysus, Joseph Warren Keifer as Hercules, John Alexander Logan as Mars, Benjamin F. Butler as Venus, Stephen Wallace Dorsey and Thomas Jefferson Brady as putti, and John Kelly as an owl.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-10-08

Our merciless millionaire

Puck hangs onto the coat-tails of William H. Vanderbilt, who is holding a money bag labeled “Donation of $500,000 to Build a New Medical College,” as he climbs the steps to a building labeled “N. Y. College of Physicians & Surgeons.” At the top of the steps are trustees and men with surgical instruments eagerly awaiting the donation. On the right, in the background, is a man standing in the doorway of a building beneath a sign that states “Crape & Plantem. Undertakers.” He is waving a white cloth. Caption: Vanderbilt – “The public be – doctored!”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-10-29

“The sleeping party”

A woman labeled “Republican Party” sleeps in the background, while members of her court, some dressed as women, also sleep in the foreground. Depicted are Whitelaw Reid, Murat Halstead, Russell Sage, John Roach, Jay Gould, Benjamin F. Butler, James G. Blaine, William H. Vanderbilt, John Logan, Cyrus W. Field, two dogs labeled “Phila. Press” and “Chicago Tribune,” Chester A. Arthur, Rutherford B. Hayes, William W. Phelps, John Sherman, Simon Cameron, George F. Hoar, Alonzo B. Cornell, Stephen W. Dorsey, Thomas J. Brady, William M. Evarts, George M. Robeson, William E. Chandler, and Joseph W. Keifer. Caption: She bungled with the civil-service reform distaff, and she and all her court were condemned to sleep for __ years.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-08-26

Leap-year

Near a wetland labeled “Campaign Swamp” are William M. Evarts and John G. Carlisle as two cranes on the left. Several frogs identified as “Lincoln, Arthur, Robeson, Edmunds, Cameron, Sherman, Logan, Grant, Davis, [and] Blaine” perch on the right. Another small frog, labeled “Me Too,” who may be Jay Gould, rides piggy-back on a larger frog that may be William H. Vanderbilt. “Lincoln” is making a leap over “Arthur” across a bit of water toward a board labeled “Presidential Nomination 1884” that is part of a dock or wharf. Caption: It would not surprise us to see the above acrobatic feat performed by this rising young frog.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1884-03-26

A summer smoke-cloud

Puck reclines before a table covered with alcoholic beverages, some labeled “V. H. Dusenbury’s P.P. Brandy” and “Puck Punch [No London Punch],” smoking and blowing smoke rings. Among the figures appearing in Puck’s smoke cloud are Chester Alan Arthur labeled “For a Good Veto” and fishing for “Popularity”; George M. Robeson at the helm of a boat carrying a large money bag labeled “Appropriation”; Jay Gould, Russell Sage, and William H. Vanderbilt sailing on a boat labeled “Monopoly”; Susan B. Anthony and another woman, George William Curtis labeled “Civil Service Reform,” Roscoe Conkling, Jay A. Hubbell labeled “Deform,” Ulysses S. Grant labeled “No Third Term,” David Davis, Robert Green Ingersoll boxing with Thomas De Witt Talmage, James Gordon Bennett, “Old Rossa” with “Dynamite,” Cyrus W. Field trying to net a “Coronet,” John Kelly and Samuel J. Tilden on a seesaw, William Russell Grace standing on a rock labeled “Public Esteem” with Seth Low trying to climb up, and James Russell Lowell on a “British Mission.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1882-08-09

Hopelessly bound to the stake

A man labeled “Workman” is tied to a stake labeled “Monopoly” and sits on a flaming pile of logs with the faces of Jay Gould, William H. Vanderbilt, Russell Sage, Roscoe Conkling, Cyrus W. Field, Whitelaw Reid who breathes flames labeled “Monopoly Press,” and Chauncey M. Depew who breathes flames labeled “Depew.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-08-15

The allies under the new flag – the Republicans and the monopolists train their guns on the workingmen

Print shows the Republican and monopolist allies raising a flag that states “Down with the Workingman and Up with the Tariff” in an artillery battery where they are aiming a cannon toward “Fort Labor” which is flying the flag of the “Workingmans Party”. In the allies camp are Roscoe Conkling, Jay Gould, Alonzo B. Cornell, William D. Kelley, William H. Vanderbilt, Ulysses S. Grant, John Sherman, George F. Hoar, John Roach, “Hastings”, and Whitelaw Reid.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-08-08

The two gobblers

Jay Gould and William H. Vanderbilt, wearing Roman togas, laugh between themselves as they “gobble” up telegraph and railroad companies to add to their monopolies. Caption: (We do not wish to suggest an analogy to the subject of a famous picture representing two Roman augurs laughing over the Imposition they are practising on the Public).

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1885-08-12

The tournament of today – a set-to between labor and monopoly

Print shows a jousting tournament between an oversized knight riding horse-shaped armor labeled “Monopoly” over a locomotive, with a long plume labeled “Arrogance,” and carrying a shield labeled “Corruption of the Legislature” and a lance labeled “Subsidized Press,” and a barefoot man labeled “Labor” riding an emaciated horse labeled “Poverty,”, and carrying a sledgehammer labeled “Strike.” On the left is seating “Reserved for Capitalists” where Cyrus W. Field, William H. Vanderbilt, John Roach, Jay Gould, and Russell Sage are sitting. On the right, behind the labor section, are telegraph lines flying monopoly banners that are labeled “Wall St., W.U.T. Co., [and] N.Y.C. RR.”

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-08-01

The new policeman on the beat – the monopoly gang defies him!

A policeman from the “New Chicago Anti-Monopoly Party” holds a broken nightstick labeled “Popular Support.” He is standing on a sidewalk at “Vanderbilt’s Monopoly Car Yard,” confronting a gang of monopolists that includes, among others, Jay Gould, William H. Vanderbilt, Cyrus W. Field, John Roach, Russell Sage, and an “Anti-Monopoly Grocery Monopolist” Francis B. Thurber. Gang members hold handguns and rocks. Puck, holding a club labeled “Only Support,” stands with the policeman. A flag that states “No Thoroughfare for Small Business Men” hangs from a building. An injured or dead man, identified as a “Small Business Man,” is lying in the street.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1883-07-18

Cut-throat business in Wall Street. How the inexperienced lose their heads

Print shows William H. Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, Russell Sage and James R. Keene checking ticker tape connected to a large straight-edge razor labeled “Wade in & Butcher’em” and “This Indicator Rises & Falls with Stocks” with a bear and a bull and several money bags labeled “$” balanced on the back of the blade; below, draped over the handle are many investors reaching for bundles of “Pacific Mail, Western Union, [and] Erie” stocks, the blade is poised to drop. In the background another group of investors labeled “The Lambs Brigade” are headed into the “N.Y. Stock Exchange”.

Collection

Library of Congress Prints and Photographs

Creation Date

1881-09-07